Kitties like to "cover" their food

[Texaskitty]

Hi, I thought this was funny behavior and wanted to share. I feed Aria on a washable little carpet, and she would grab the corner of the carpet and cover her wet food dish if she didn't finish all of it. She doesn't do it with the dry food bowl, just the wet food. I started giving her a sheet of paper towel to use so she wouldn't keep messing with the carpet, so she's using the paper towel instead : ) She uses her paws and just pulls it over the bowl. Then when she wants more she moves the paper towel over. We think this is really funny. Then we just adopted our little boy Tiki a week ago and he saw her do it and he's doing it too! There's 2 paper towels on the floor now, one for each of their wet food dishes. I never saw a cat do this before. Does anyone know why?

 

[Graceful-Lily]

My Felix does this all the time.

Some say it's an instinct from their wild ancestors. They will cover food to avoid attracting predators or scavengers. They bury it to cover the scent. It also prevented prey from knowing that predators (the cats) were around.

 

[tabbytom]

It's normal for them to cover up their food. In the wild, they do this so that predators cannot detect them and also it's a way of saving it for later. They'll go through the motion as if they are covering up the food with soil.

My boy does that each time he finishes his meal. He'll try to cover his plate even it is a tiled counter.

Graceful-Lily is one moment ahead of me in answering you and we have identical answers

 

[She's a witch]

My girl learnt it from my boy she never did that before we introduced a second cat. She does it passionately now. but mine do it when they are not happy with the food, they don’t like it or there’s too much water in there, it’s been out for too long etc